


Top Priority

by Sonzaishinai



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Injustice: Gods Among Us, Justice League & Justice League Unlimited (Cartoons), Superman (Comics), Superman - All Media Types, Superman/Batman (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Dark, Heavy Angst, How Do I Tag, Injustice, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts, technically its hurt and comfort but I wouldnt say that for sure
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-27
Packaged: 2019-10-30 22:44:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17837420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sonzaishinai/pseuds/Sonzaishinai
Summary: Nothing stung more than listening to his former best friend apologize to Kal when Kal was the one who'd hurt him beyond repair. Nothing stung more than knowing that the tears, sobs, and pain that Bruce had never shown before were his fault.Nothing could ever soothe that pain.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Nothing too noteworthy this time folks :( 
> 
> Actually, that's a lie, there's been noteworthy shit but it's not something I'm too enthusiastic to discuss.
> 
> Remember my missing dog? Well, it's been almost two months since he went missing. We've kinda accepted that he's dead or has been dognapped, but I have two puppies that I've begun taking on walks as of recent. Always, we would only walk around this one block that started at the end of our block and then came back, but yesterday, at the start, they began running.
> 
> They began running without any warning, and they began confidently running a different route that I've never taken them on before- they began running the same route that my missing dog and I always ran through back when I was training for cross country. I've never taken them on the route and they just took off with me having to run beside them while holding their leashes. Down the same path, on the sidewalk rather than on the dirt side, just like my missing dog had begun doing on the runs prior to him disappearing, stopping at the same spot my missing dog always did and sniffing around it before taking off running again, and going down to the last avenue in our neighborhood, through half a mile as I did on the first day I was training with my missing dog, and then heading back home.
> 
> Maybe it's just coincidence or maybe they've just been at our home long enough that the both of them picked up on old scent trails we'd to left, which sounds slightly ridiculous now that I say it, but some part of me wants to believe it's a sign. Maybe it really is just coincidence, though, even though I'd never traveled that route with them.
> 
> Maybe I shouldn't give up on looking just yet.

Bruce sighed.

 

“Can we… Can we pretend that we’re both okay? That there’s nothing between us at this moment? Please?”

 

With sorrowful arctic eyes that Kal had never taken the time to appreciate until now, Bruce continued to stare down at him. “Listen… Kal.” His lips thinned, and he stared off momentarily, as if to gather his thoughts. “I- I have some… things to say. And I’m hoping that… that they reach you. Clark.”

 

Kal scrunched his nose at the name. The name of a dead man walking- he hated it- god knows he hated it. There was no more Clark Kent, but Bruce always insisted that he still existed. 

 

His eyes burned at the memory, but he willed the tears away before Bruce.

 

“There’s a lot I have to apologize for. A lot that I need to get off of my chest- have needed to get off of my chest.” Uncharacteristically, he gnawed on his bottom lip. Kal had never seen him do that before. Not in all his years of knowing him. “I- I know that you’re angry. That you’re very… displeased at your circumstances… locked away in a red sun cell.” He laughed humorlessly. “That’s an understatement, isn’t it…?”   
  


A pregnant silence blossomed between the two before Bruce set on whispering.

 

“Three hundred years… that’s a long time to be alone,” and Kal had to fight the urge to just get up and respond- had to reign in the need to yell back. But the sight- god, the sight of those eyes holding more concern than Kal was ever willing to see- it hurt that he’s ignored so much that could have fixed many more issues between them. It was too late, now, to say that he could finally see the concern and love behind those eyes.

 

Bruce continued to gnaw at his lip before proceeding to speak, head down. “I don’t think I can ever stress enough, Clark, how sorry I am for that day. I swear to my grave that I am- and I’m sorry that I was never there to help you through your grief. I-” again, he stuttered, and swallowed harshly, like he was pushing the words past a lump in his throat. For several seconds, he opened and closed his mouth, but Kal watched with an aching heart as his vocal cords became uncooperative, and Bruce flushed red with frustration and anger.

 

_ At himself _ , a sad part of his mind whispered.

 

Tears began to flow down Bruce’s pale face, always the looker that he was. Even now, with his cheeks embarrassingly wet and eyes bloodshot and puffy, Kal could begin to appreciate the angled features and look past the cracked lips and furrowed brows into those eyes that held overwhelming sadness and burden.

 

A giver of life, though a carrier of death.

 

“I-I’m so sorry, Cl-Clark,” he sobbed, voice cracking. “I-I know you-” hiccup “-won’t believe me, but I- I tried! I- honest, I fucking tried, but- but it hurts without you in-” hiccup “-in my life a-as my best friend and- fuck!”

 

His palms slapped onto his cheeks, trying to wipe away at the wet, snotty mess piling up. “E-Every fucking day, I-I’ve wondered if- if it’s have been better-” sniffle “-for- for everyone if-” His voice broke off and Kal watched with an aching heart as his former best friend tried unsuccessfully to school his face into a calm mask, and take deep breaths in and out to calm his voice. How did he ever miss how much harm he was doing to Bruce? To both himself and his old friend? Why was he always so intent on ignoring it, again?

 

“Sometimes I wish I was the one who Joker targeted that day… Maybe then our world wouldn’t have gone to shit.” The chuckle that escapes his lips is empty. “That would have been for the best, wouldn’t it, Clark?”

 

Kal fights the urge to tell him that no, it wouldn’t have been for the best. That his life is as precious as any other, and that if it was him who they’d lost, he’d make sure a thousand cities mourned his death in turn. That no one dared to disgrace his legacy nor speak of him lightheartedly. That everyone was privy to his sacrifices and that no one-  _ no one _ would ever have to go through the same traumas he had as an innocent child. That if he was gone, the world wouldn’t shine as bright as it had before.

 

He doesn’t say a word. He lets Bruce continue to talk.

 

“Do you think my parents would have been proud of me, Clark? Becoming the criminal that I am? The monster that let his best friend’s wife, unborn child, and city die, and then leave him to deal with the pain by himself?” Another heavy, burden laden sigh. “I don’t think so. I don’t think it at all,” and, god, Kal wants to scream at him, yell that he’s wrong- that he’s no monster and that his parents would be proud, but before he can, Bruce rattles on. “Maybe this world would have turned out better if I died in that alleyway.”

 

There are no words nor gestures made between the two for a long time. In the silence, Bruce seems to stare past Kal’s shoulder, as if seeing someone else behind it. As if mourning someone no longer there.

 

“Listen, Clark. I know you never- never loved me. I know that- that you’d rather I was dead, but… please hear me out…? I… Having you as- as a friend was one of the best decisions I ever made in my life and I don’t regret it. I don’t regret any of our time together. I just wish that I had cherished it more- like I should have, with Dick. With Jason. With Alfred… With my parents.” Kal traced the bobbing of his adam’s apple as he swallowed at the recollection. “Three decades, pushing four and… the pain still feels fresh, like it had happened yesterday… I- I can barely remember everything else, though. Just-... Just the night. I always was an impatient child, never really considering the value of things… Did I get to tell them I love you before they died?” 

 

Bruce whispered the last sentence and Kal’s eternal sentiment was with the man- he, too, wondered if he’d managed to tell his wife he loved her before the incident with Joker. Always rushing out to work, not giving a second thought towards the small things in life. Did he tell her that he loved her?

 

“I should have been a better friend.” Those are lies, Bruce. You were the bestest friend anyone could have ever had. “Maybe if I was just faster, then maybe Lois wouldn’t have had died. Maybe no one would have died.” The past is the past, Bruce. You tried your best. I’m sorry I never acknowledged that. “I’m a plague- everyone around me always gets hurt. Everyone around me always got hurt.” 

 

Kal had never wished he was Clark again so badly. Clark always knew how to comfort others. Kal was nothing more than the shadow of the man etched in stone.

 

Bruce looked up, straight at Kal again, eerily seeming like he was addressing him at the barest of the stripped layers to his soul. “Clark. Kal. Superman. I want to tell you that, for as long as I live, I have loved you, because in spite of what we’ve been through, I know what you’ve done was only what you felt was in the best interest of humanity. Your actions have deeply hurt me and many others, but I’ve hurt you worse.”

 

“So, please, Clark… I know I don’t deserve it, but… will you put aside your hate and forgive me?”   
  


The holographic Bruce emerging from the tablet froze, and an automated voice devoid of any emotion inquired, “Message completed. Would you like to play back the message?”

 

Kal murmured a quiet “yes”, listening to it again for the umpteenth time. Who knew how many times he’s played back the message, crisp and untainted like it was just recorded yesterday rather than having been sent to him in the wake of Bruce’s death twenty years ago. Regardless, he’ll never get tired of hearing it- of listening to the voice of a man whose heartbeat he’s now forgotten.

 

God, what he’d give to hear and see and touch Bruce again. To tell him that he shouldn’t be apologizing, and that Kal was the one who owed him an apology. That Bruce was innocent in all of this and that he shouldn’t be blaming himself- that he’s more than what he took himself for, but most of all, that he’s sorry for having hurt him. And that… and that he never did hate him. If Kal had been given the chance to see Bruce one more time, he’d so desperately tell him that he’s never hated him, and that he needn’t ask for forgiveness, because- god-... His best friend had died thinking that Kal had loathed him with all his heart and it was far from the truth. A truth he realized too fucking late and-!

 

Kal wiped away at his tears whilst the message replayed again. He shouldn’t be standing around like this, with time slipping from his fingertips. If the federal government were to get on his case now, it’d be a pain in the ass.

 

Walking over to the now pried-open coffin, Kal lifted the skeletal remains beautifully adorning a black tuxedo before treading carefully to the bubbling lazarus pits, glowing an eerie green.

 

He’ll pay his respects to the Wayne Mausoleum and say his sorries later, but for now, Bruce was top priority. 


	2. Sleeping Beauty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter that came to me right before school  
> Enjoy

With delicate hands, Kal placed the skeleton into the greenish liquid, the pit swallowing up Bruce, down, down low, beneath its surface when Kal removed his hands from underneath the fragile, brittle bones.

 

And so he stood, watching after it sank, peering down anxiously at the knee-deep water. Ten seconds. Thirty. A minute.

 

And then a desperate splash enveloped Kal’s uniform, wetting the skintight suit and startling the Kryptonian. Below him, Bruce was sitting up, desperately clawing at the air before him and screaming himself hoarse with ferocity unrivaled. His eyes weren’t seeing and seemed to phase through even Kal himself as the alien grasped at the man’s shoulders, bringing him into a tight hug that stopped Bruce from further hurting himself.

 

He stayed that way, brimming with hope for a good ten minutes, eyes shut against the crook of his best friend’s neck till that velvet voice grew hoarse and silent, croaking and alight with pain. He stayed that way and he refused to break away until the flesh grasped in his arms grew limp and unmoving, the human falling unconscious softly in his arms. Only then did Kal break away, a tad bit concerned but grateful, and god, when he finally had the chance to stare down at his resurrected companion- 

 

Bruce was cradled in his arms, eyes shut peacefully and mouth parted as it breathed in precious air. All the tenseness in him had melted and he showed no signs of strain, the hair of his temples lucious and softer than silk, Kal noted when he ran his fingers through it disbelievingly. The high cheekbones that’d formerly been shallow and white with the revelation of bone were now coated with plush skin, unbelievably soft and flushed with exertion.

 

He was beautiful.

 

Kal reluctantly turned his eyes towards the ceiling of the cave before he’d be further enraptured by the perfect god slumbering in his arms, emitting warmth and adorning a wet suit that highlighted his defined musculature beneath.

 

The government would find him soon, and he still had to await Bruce’s wakening. He’ll continue to admire Bruce later, but for now, he had to find somewhere safe to remain hidden, and he knew just the place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SHort chap, gtg to school, cya

**Author's Note:**

> Nothing too noteworthy this time folks :( 
> 
> Actually, that's a lie, there's been noteworthy shit but it's not something I'm too enthusiastic to discuss.
> 
> Remember my missing dog? Well, it's been almost two months since he went missing. We've kinda accepted that he's dead or has been dognapped, but I have two puppies that I've begun taking on walks as of recent. Always, we would only walk around this one block that started at the end of our block and then came back, but yesterday, at the start, they began running.
> 
> They began running without any warning, and they began confidently running a different route that I've never taken them on before- they began running the same route that my missing dog and I always ran through back when I was training for cross country. I've never taken them on the route and they just took off with me having to run beside them while holding their leashes. Down the same path, on the sidewalk rather than on the dirt side, just like my missing dog had begun doing on the runs prior to him disappearing, stopping at the same spot my missing dog always did and sniffing around it before taking off running again, and going down to the last avenue in our neighborhood, through half a mile as I did on the first day I was training with my missing dog, and then heading back home.
> 
> Maybe it's just coincidence or maybe they've just been at our home long enough that the both of them picked up on old scent trails we'd to left, which sounds slightly ridiculous now that I say it, but some part of me wants to believe it's a sign. Maybe it really is just coincidence, though, even though I'd never traveled that route with them.
> 
> Maybe I shouldn't give up on looking just yet.


End file.
